Crossing
by Lady Asvin
Summary: In which Padmé forgives Anakin for his transgressions. Covers both prequel films and final scene of the original films.


All characters are ©Lucasfilm, George Lucas, etc – I make no money off of these characters.

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It would have been so simple just to let him sit there, hunched over, looking older than she had ever imagined he'd look. It had been easy enough to let him go, in life, once it was apparent that the boy she'd so ardently loved had turned into (_been consumed by_) a monster.

A monster that let his values get so easily derailed.

A monster that would strangle his own wife.

But as she gazed at him from her position behind a terra-cotta vase, bright red flowers nodding gently in the erratic breeze, her anger receded to a dull hum behind her ears. The man she looked at now seemed so lost and broken; he was a soul with confessions to make, lapses to come to terms with – otherwise he would not have been there. The Force wasn't yet willing to let him join its eternal cycle, and so he sat before her, deconstructed, ruined, less a man than a hollow shell. All of that passion, that extreme and concentrated love he'd shown her, that endless and desperate hatred he's crumbled into – all of _that_, the essence of _him_, had disappeared, leaving this shattered being.

"Annie."

Her voice barely made it out, riding the gentle swells of the breeze as the water rippled gently not twenty feet from her. She was afraid he wouldn't hear her, more terrified that he would, and when she saw him grimace, she didn't know whether to feel relief or pain.

"Annie, it's me…" she spoke up a little this time, and began to move out from behind the flowerpot. It was only when she stood before him that he noticed she was real (_ethereal_), standing (_as he'd so often dreamed in life, as he'd so often wished in this place_) in a dress he vaguely remembered as at once melting into the pastel Naboo landscape and arresting his senses (_the way the back sank so low, he couldn't help but gaze at her_). His mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out for a moment; he had resigned himself to losing her forever, and she stood before him, grace before failure, staring him down with the same seriousness in her features she'd used to her advantage as Queen, as Senator.

"Pad…mé?"

She reached out to touch him, but he flinched, and she withdrew as though she'd been hit.

"Padmé…"

This time, he let her touch his shoulder, fingers resting on the rough material of his cloak, tracing the shape of his arm until they found where man ended and machine began; when she looked up at him again, she was suddenly surprised to see that the old man was no longer there. The blue eyes she stared into were younger, the skin tighter, the hair longer (_that dirty blond she remembered so well_), and he was gripping her so tightly that she thought she might explode (_from happiness or surprise, she didn't know_).

"You must know I'm sorry," he said, his voice low, intense, desperate to make her understand. His blue eyes (_so much like their son's, oh yes, he'd taken after his father_) pleaded with her to understand. "You must know that I have gone through every kind of hell – I am crippled by my actions, I tried to kill you, my love, my only weakness; I tried to kill our daughter, for I had become so insensitive to the _good_ in the Force that I could not even recognize you (_us_) in her; I tried to kill our son, because I knew he was the incarnation of everything I should have been (_every way I failed my old master, every way I failed you_). You must know how weary I am of battling myself, Padmé…" He turned his face away from her.

"My failures are too great even for words."

He let the conversation drop and for a moment he was old again, weary eyes gazing out over the breathtaking panorama that was Naboo's lake country.

"I'm sorry I gave up on you."

Padmé's simple statement hung in the air. Before her, Anakin Skywalker was suddenly a precocious ten-year-old pod racer from Tatooine with nothing but a droid and dreams; a willful Padawan learner battling emotions he'd been commanded _not_ to have; a brooding husband consumed by dreams and premonitions of pain, of death. As he shifted between these forms, his presence seemed to solidify, amalgamate, converge, until he was once again the man she had known as her husband rather than a shell of a being that once existed.

"Walk with me."

She extended her hand and he grasped it, desperation as evident in his touch as it had been in his speech, in his eyes.

"Do you forgive me?"

She met his gaze and then smiled at him, reminding him of fields of endless flowers, bright sunshine, stolen moments of carefree bliss in the midst of a galactic war.

"Oh, Annie," she said softly, lacing her fingers between his own. For a long while they walked along the balcony of Varykino. Their steps never varied, Anakin adjusting his longer paces to suit Padmé's shorter ones, fingers interlaced like newlyweds. The japor necklace Anakin had given her was wrapped around her wrist, its pendant held by their two hands (_symbolic as the day he had given it to her to remember him by_).

The landscape changed suddenly, and they were walking through virgin woods, their feet catching on the forest undergrowth, ambient light fading fast. From far off there was music, celebration, flickering firelight; Anakin turned to his wife in confusion.

"I already said my goodbyes," she said by way of explanation. "Leia holds me in her memory." Her brown eyes met his; she took both of his hands, placing one on either side of her face.

"I'm sorry I gave up on you, Annie… but I knew there was good in you." She leaned close to him.

"You proved it when you saved your son."

She kissed him gently, and his memories took him back to Naboo, back to the streaming sunlight of the late afternoon, back to where the holy man had joined their hands, his robotic fingers convulsing reflexively, in the sacred bond of marriage. She kissed him whole, and when he opened his eyes again, she was fading away.

"No – Padmé –"

"You need to say goodbye, Annie; don't worry, you'll see me again as soon as you do. You just have to say goodbye…" She faded completely.

"Say goodbye…" Anakin turned toward the celebration, trudging toward the insubstantial firelight, dragging himself through the leaves toward something (_he wasn't sure what, but she had said it, and so he followed_). When he reached the clearing, he realized he was gazing at a victory celebration; dancing and music and food were plentiful, the celebrators were exultant, and the night was young.

"Say goodbye…"

It wasn't until he realized he was looking at his own eyes that he started. There, twenty feet away, stared his son, smiling wistfully. Anakin shuffled his feet and gave a small bow of acknowledgement (_of apology, of pride_). His son's eyes slid over to a space next to him, and when Anakin sent out his senses, he sensed (_he could not see, but was nonetheless comforted by_) the spirit of his Master. Another bow from Luke and Anakin was able to sense Master Yoda, as diminutive in death as he had been in life, as pensive, as proud of Luke as Anakin himself was.

Luke was drawn back to the celebration by his sister and the pilot Han Solo; on the outskirts of the clearing, the three Jedi began to fade out.

"Master?" asked Anakin, wondering (_hoping_) he'd get a reply. "What now?"

And when the answer arrived, it was not spoken aloud, but he _felt_ it.

_My young Padwan – now, we join the Force._

_fin_


End file.
